Great West Conference

The Great West Conference was an NCAAcollege athletic conference in the continental USA. Originally a football-only league, it became an all-sports entity during the 2008-09 season. The GWC stopped sponsoring football following the 2011 season. The conference became defunct when four of the remaining five full member schools became members of other conferences on July 1, 2013.

Northern Colorado departed the Great West for the Big Sky Conference in every sport as of the 2006 football season and 2006-07 academic year. On March 7, 2007, North Dakota State and South Dakota State announced that they would leave the GWFC after the 2007 football season, and join the Gateway Football Conference as of 2008. By the time the two schools actually made the switch, the Gateway had renamed itself the Missouri Valley Football Conference. The duo also placed their other sports, which were then independent, in the Summit League as of the 2008-09 academic year.

Great-West Lifeco

Great-West Lifeco is an insurance centered financial holding company (corporation) that operates in North America (USA and Canada), Europe and Asia through 5 wholly owned, regionally focused subsidiaries. Many of the companies it has indirect control over are part of its largest subsidiary The Great-West Life Assurance Company; the others (Great West Life & Annuities Financial Inc and Putnam Investments, LLC) are managed by US based subsidiary Great-West Lifeco US Inc. Great-West Lifeco is indirectly controlled by Montreal billionaire Paul Desmarais through his stake in the Power Corporation of Canada (owned by the family since 1968) which owns 72% (down slightly from 74.6% in 2005) of Great-West Lifeco. In the first half of 2011 premium income made up 63.99% of total revenue up from 56.07% hoh. The hyphen in the company's name was originally a typesetter's error.

For the three months ended June 2013, 63% of revenue originated in Canada, 26% from the US, 10% from Europe. Group retirement products (Canadian sales up 49%) and 401k markets (US Great West Financial sales up 34%) remain key areas of growth for the company. Lower UK wealth management single premiums negatively affected growth. Boston-based Putnum Investments accounts for nearly a quarter of all assets under administration. Approximately half of company profit comes from Canada, a third from Europe and the rest of the United States.
In the third quarter of 2010 British sales outpaced all other regions with 45% growth followed by the USA financial services business (up 41%). In 2q2011 earthquakes affected payout rates in Europe.